What is a Mary Sue?
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| Title: | What is a Mary Sue? |
| Creator: | L.C. Wells |
| Date(s): | 1992 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | multifandom |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
What is a Mary Sue? is a 1992 essay by L.C. Wells.
It was printed in CrosSignals #6.
The author's notes: "My research was mostly done over the last year. Many of my correspondents didn't wish to be identified or quoted directly."
Some Topics Discussed
- "Who is she (or he)? Where did s/he come from?"
- Mary Sues in professional writing has a long and honorable history, some examples are given
- Mary Sues started in Star Trek fanzines, and were written by beginning writers who didn't have many skills
- Mary Sues got a bad reputation because there were so many of them... also because they were badly written
- "bad" Mary Sues are too perfect, obnoxious, superior to all other characters, dislikeable, two-dimensional, alter egos of the author, and used solely for the author's self-gratification, should be "usable as ferret litter"
- the author cites from stats from Jundland Wastes #10, showing the proliferation of Star Wars (and other) fanzines
- Star Wars fandom spawned a lot of Mary Sue parodies, many cruel
- at the end of the 1980s, fandoms became more balkanized; there were many other media fandoms and those fans started zines and fannish spaces dedicated to those fandoms - the days of having only Star Trek and Star Wars (there is no mention of other active fandoms such as Starsky & Hutch, Man from U.N.C.L.E., comics, and other interests)
- this "fracturing" and separating of fans meant that there were new fans writing in new spaces without the benefit of the history and mentoring that older, centralized fannish spaces provided
- the term Mary Sue has become a blanket dismissal of original female characters, and it is seldom applied to male characters
- nobody ever sets out to write a Mary Sue; the term is applied by others
- a compliment to writers is to say, "your story isn't a Mary Sue"
- oral and fannish history, self-perpetuation of the term: when "Mary Sue" was mentioned at a con panel in 1991, the audience members didn't know what it was - once explained, the term was once again passed on to the future
From the Essay
The generally agreed upon definition of a Mary Sue is a wish-fulfillment character created to interact with a character from a television show. Wish-fulfillment characters have a long and honorable history. Mystery buffs have suspected Harriet Vane was a wish-fulfillment character for Dorothy Sayers so she could interact with her hero, Lord Peter Wimscy. George Lucas has admitted that Luke Skywalker was an alter-ego. So why do created wish-fulfillment characters have such a negative connotation in fan fiction?
The term, ’Mary Sue’, was coined in Star Trek fanzines. Many of these stories were written by unskilled beginning writers. "Mary Sues began as seduction stories,” one person commented. Most of these writers wanted to bed him/her/it. It's "not that the genre is bad but the people who wrote for it were so awful...it was flooded." The writers didn’t have enough knowledge or training to create well-rounded characters.
The hallmarks of a (bad) Mary Sue story were a lack of any faults. MS’ were "all-understanding, super beings". Wanda Lybarger offers that she always understood a Mary Sue was "an obnoxious, superior and utterly unlikely alter-ego, placed within a story context; a character introduced obviously and solely for the author’s self-gratification." Other people agree that MS’ are generally not "well-integrated into the universe" and are two-dimensional.
In mid-70’s a new influx of writers joined the fannish world with Star Wars. Between 1977 and 1984, Star Wars fanzines flourished, especially between the years of The Empire Strikes Back and the Return of the Jedi. Many writers had read Star Trek-written fiction; many were new to fandom. A look at a copy of the Star Wars-based letterzine Jundland Wastes 10 (June 1982) lists 49 available zines, 6 coming zines, and 21 planned zines, some of them totally SW based, others multi-media. Others didn’t make the letterzine. The full garnet of Mary Sue stories appeared, from the well-written (defined as those not labeled as such), to the opposite extreme (and usable as ferret litter).
I know. I read many of them. By the mid-80’s, the end of the main ’Star Wars’ period, Mary Sue stories were being parodied, often cruelly.
At roughly the same time, fandom fractured into a number of subgenres. Zines became show or genre-specific: Battlestar Galactica, the Wild Wild West, Blake’s Seven, Robin of Sherwood. Then came Beauty and the Beast, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. And the full Mary Sue spectrum
flourished in the hands of new writers and in the new zines.
The term has been blunted through "indiscriminate application", according to Wanda Lybarger, a point brought up by others. It is used most often against any female character in a story, no matter how well integrated they are. At worst it has become "a shallow dismissal of any character who was in whole or part a surrogate for the author," says Wanda. It is seldom applied to a created male character versus a female character.
How do you prevent a character from being labeled a "Mary Sue?" Have the hero NOT fall madly in love (with him/her) at first glance; include a realistic setting and have her react realistically (divorce, thoughtlessness, depression, mood swings, et al). Include humor, more humor and not having her "save the universe!" Integrate the character seamlessly into a story so a reader doesn’t realize she’s created.
Writers seldom name their created character, Mary Sue. The term is applied by readers, editors and critics. It can be used as a cruel whip word; it can be a tip to another reader as to the story type; it can be used as a compliment "your character’s NOT a Mary Sue!" The ubiquitous term unfortunately sums up the bulk of wish-fulfillment stories so accurately that it has become ineradicable.
Or has it? At Oktobertrek/Hunt Valley Maryland in 1991 when the term was mentioned at a panel, it then had to be explained to the many members of the audience. The next generation of fans had never heard of it.